Posted on 08/11/2009 12:35:59 PM PDT by BGHater
The founders were wary of corporate influence on politics — and their rhetoric sometimes got pretty heated. In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
This skepticism was enshrined in law in the early 20th century when the nation adopted strict rules banning corporations from contributing to political campaigns. Today that ban is in danger from the Supreme Court, which hears arguments next month in a little-noticed case that could open the floodgates to corporate money in politics.
The court has gone to extraordinary lengths to hear the case. And there are worrying signs that there may well be five votes to rule that the ban on corporate contributions violates the First Amendment.
The origins of the ban lie in the 1896 presidential race, which pitted the Republican William McKinley against William Jennings Bryan, the farm-belt populist. Bryan was a peerless orator, but McKinley had Mark Hanna — the premier political operative of his day — extracting so-called assessments from the nation’s biggest corporations and funneling them into a vast marketing campaign.
McKinley, who outspent Bryan by an estimated 10 to 1, won handily, proving Hanna’s famous dictum: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.”
Popular outrage over corporate contributions reached a high point in the 1904 election.
The defeated candidate, the Democrat Alton Parker, charged — accurately, it turned out — that his opponent had been bankrolled by large life insurance companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Corporations, groups, organizations, etc. should only have privileges.
How about keeping union money out of elections?
Oh, wait, union money goes about 95% to Democrats, so that money is OK!
How do you propose doing this?
-Shrug-
I feel only individual should be able to give money[As much as they want] to politicians.
14th Amendment, has given protections to corporations.
Appreciate the point, but corps., groups, organizations etc. are made up of people. Don't know how you separate people from their interests, or desire to enshrine the idea that some people have rights, others privileges.
Here’s an idea:
How about we find out who gave all those <$200 donations to Obama over the internet without any identity?
Foreigners? Fake names? What?
Keep LAWFIRM money out of the legislative process too!
Funny, I see corporate money still having no problem making it into politics. As long as the American people pay more attention to their next consumer purchase than they do to their next vote, the problems will remain. The money is just the symptom.
‘people have rights’
Individuals have rights. Is that not how we operate?
A corp, organization, group, unions etc is not a ‘person’ or ‘people’.
His relative in Boston is on assisted living (and she says her health is her wealth). Didn’t she reportedly making an illegal $2000 contribution? Where’d she get that kind of disposable income?
It is too bad that Democrats won’t have to abide by the same laws as everyone else.
These idiots have no problem with unions and Soros spending a billion to run their own campaigns for the Democrats “independently” (yea right).
Do you think we should ban TV channels from talking about politics? How does the law force them not to become DNC-TV? Thats a huge full time fund for the Democrat Party right there.
Like I have said, these people don’t live by the laws they want us to live under.
You can bet the author probably would like “Public Funding” too.
to enable Union Money to be more effective.
I am sure it was a program that divides up billions into 199.95s to transmit over the Internet. Soros and the Arabs would be good bets as to origin.
So long as the money exists t be given, it will be given. Laws only convert it from legal donation to corruption.
I agree. Trying too keep money out of politics is a fool's errand, a hundred year fool's errand. As long as politics is a career money will flow, down hill, to politicians constantly seeking reelection. Two terms and out. It's the only way.
Agreed, but I am not so sure about letting them have two terms.
The problem is called “Career Politicians” and how they finance their campaigns.
We need throw out the old campaign laws and start over.
The new campaign law should start with “Only eligible voters can contribute to………..” along with total transparency, mandatory prison time, removal from office.
JOIN THE TAX REVOLT
STOP YOUR SPENDING
Take your extra cash and bury it in the “back yard”.
Don’t put it in the bank
Don’t give it to Wall Street.
And above all tell your “career politicians” why you have stopped spending.
Tell Washington to stop their out of controll spending.
They wouldn’t need to donate money if the government didn’t have their hands around the corporation’s necks and the corporations hands weren’t in the taxpayers pocket. How do we achieve that? Massively smaller government.
University of California was a massive donor to Obama’s campaign. Goldman Sachs was also. It wasn’t the entities that gave the money, the money came from individuals at these organizations making it all perfectly legal.
The way to thwart what you wish to implement.
The corporation has an unwritten policy that says we will give you another 50K in yearly compensation as long as you spend 50% of that compensation to support our cause.
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